Belichick: Poor Start Set the Tone in Loss

The tone was set for the New England’s ugly blowout loss at Tennessee Sunday on the very first play of the game, according to Bill Belichick.

Darius Jennings took the opening kickoff 58 yards to set the Titans up at the Patriots 50. Three minutes and 31 seconds later, Tennessee found the end zone for the first time and took a lead it would hold for the rest of the game.

“That play was pretty much symptomatic of the whole game,” Belichick said Monday. “Bad coaching, bad playing, offense, defense, special teams, running game, passing game, kicking game. We just didn’t do a good enough job.”

A day later, with a chance to review the film, there wasn’t much of a silver lining to look back on from the 34-10 rout.

“Whatever area you want to ask about... none of it was good enough,” Belichick said.

New England’s pass blocking was a particularly weak point. With top guard Shaq Mason out and starting left tackle Trent Brown exiting the game with injury troubles, the Pats struggled to protect Tom Brady. The Titans sacked Brady three times, hit him six and consistently moved him off his spot in the pocket.

On the flip side, the Patriots struggled to generate pressure on Marcus Mariota, who had a highly efficient outing with two touchdown passes and a quarterback rating of 125.0.

“Quite obviously the game situation has a lot to do with that. When you’re behind and you’re throwing a lot like we were yesterday, they’re going to get more rush opportunities, more pressure,” Belichick said. “When you’re playing from behind, you don’t have a lot of opportunities to rush the passer... we didn’t create enough of those situations and didn’t do well enough in them when we did.”